


Respect

by OccasionalStorytelling



Category: Loki: Agent of Asgard, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Adventure, Genderfluid, Genderfluid Loki, Magic, Robbery, Social Justice, general queerness, punks respect pronouns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-03-31 06:20:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3967654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OccasionalStorytelling/pseuds/OccasionalStorytelling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Thor 2, Loki has somehow ended up on Earth again. And their plans are big, big, BIG! But they need henchmen who understand respect. It isn't that difficult to understand, they think. Gender neutral pronouns, surely the humans understand this? Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Kevin Needs to Stop

**Author's Note:**

> I read a news article about how Loki always represented change in mythology; represented fluidity and growth and a challenge to the establishment to make things better. And was ignored, mostly, but would work things out eventually. The article talked about how a queer Loki fits in the modern world, and the idea really grabbed me. I am DEFINITELY finishing this. Not to mention, what ARE Loki's plans before they need to teach the mortals some respect?

Inside the bank, a woman was asking for help removing something from her vault. A clerk was walking into the back to assist her, and the customers all went about their business. No one noticed when the specific clerk didn’t return for some time… Let’s just say, he wasn’t exactly the most “subtle” of people when it came to attraction. He knew when to back off, however, and if he hadn’t returned in defeat yet then he had likely found a new girlfriend. His friend sighed with a smile and went back to helping the long line of customers.

In the back of the bank, in the vault, a green light pulsed for a moment and faded before it could be noticed. Loki waved for the henchmen (previously disguised invisibly) to start gathering the money. The clerk lay collapsed on the floor where he had fallen, passed out from one or two minor bumps on the head. Definitely minor. Probably survivable. Loki made a mental note to make sure the clerk got to a hospital. He was pretty attractive, if you got past all the blood.

Loki, still in the form of the woman, tickled the locking mechanisms oh-so-very-gently. The vault door clicked open, and stacks of gold bars began to float out the door.

“What are you doing!” Loki hissed. The henchmen were collecting paper money, American dollars. “We only need the gold! The paper is of no use to me!” The slightly bulkier one paused, thinking. Neither had much brain power, Loki knew. That was why they were henchmen.

“But boss, if it doesn’t matter to you…” he puzzled over the words. “Then can’t we take whatever we want from it…?”

Loki sighed and nodded. The men eagerly grabbed as much money as they could, stuffing the sacks with gold and their pockets with Gods know what else. Loki replaced the invisibility spell and closed the door, telling the lock that it had never been open and that it was quite a very powerful lock, and maybe it shouldn’t let anyone else inside for five hours just to prove itself. The lock decided this was an amazing idea and promptly sealed itself.

Loki stepped away from the clerk, motioning the invisible henchmen to follow. The portal back to headquarters opened on a wall, and this was to be their escape.

“Great work, boss man,” The smaller henchman laughed. Loki grimaced.

“Yeah. Great.” Loki steeled up. “That’s boss LADY, actually.” The henchman was confused. What was his name again? Loki could never remember their names.

“What?” Kevin! That was it. Kevin. Kevin was looking pretty confused.

“That would be ‘boss lady’ when you address me, Kevin.” Loki glared haughtily. Kevin laughed.

“You’re joking!” Loki did not look like he was joking. Kevin gulped. “Ha ha, umm… right?”

“No, why would I be joking?” Loki turned around, preparing for the debate that was to come. They weren’t going to leave until Kevin could understand the concept.

“Well, you’re a man, boss,” Kevin said. “You look like a lady right now, but you still got, ha, manly parts, if ya know what I mean,” he smiled.

Loki continued to not smile.

“No, I do not have ‘manly parts’ right now, Kevin. As you can see, I am a woman.” Loki waited for Kevin to get it. Kevin was not quite hitting it. “Kevin, you do understand that I don’t have a gender, right?”

Kevin nodded, quickly. Then stopped, and shook his head no. “I don’t get it, boss man.”

“Please stop calling me that.” Loki’s fist clenched. “I am a shapeshifter.” Loki spoke the words very slowly, hoping that it would get the message through. “I. Do not. Have. A. Gender.”

“But boss…” Kevin was very unsure of himself.

“Yes, Kevin?”

“When you hired us, you were a man.”

“Yes, I was a man when I hired you.” 

“So you’re a man—”

“No, no I’m not.” Loki was starting to get angry. “When I am in the form of a woman, I am a woman. When I am in the form of a man, I am a man. In this form, I am ‘boss lady,’ not ‘boss man.’ Do you understand?”

Kevin did not understand.

“Kevin.”

Kevin was trying to puzzle it out.

“Kevin, in words that humans use, I’m genderfluid.”

Kevin was starting to have some form of comprehension, finally.

“Kevin, you will respect my gender identity in whatever form I am in, and you will continue to do so for as long as you are in my—”

“But boss,” Kevin stuttered. “That’s not real.” Loki put her hand on her face exasperatedly.

“What is not real, Kevin. WHAT is not real?”

“Gender-whatever. You are what you are born as, and—”

“Clearly NOT, Kevin. I am a shapeshifter. A SHAPESHIFTER, Kevin.”

“—and you can’t change how God made you to be—”

This was too much. This was the breaking point.

“I was not made by God! I AM a God! And even if I had only one form, that is no reason to disrespect me as a person!” Loki clenched her fist again. Smoothed her dress. Turned to face the other guy. What was his name? Who cared? “You.”

He looked startled, and nearly dropped his bag. “Yes, ma’m?” 

Loki almost smiled. This one caught on. “Is Kevin this disrespectful to mortals, as well?”

Henchman two nodded. “I keep trying to stop him, ma’m, but he says things… he says things I’m not comfortable with.”

Kevin was disgruntled and angry now. “You used to have a sense of humor, dude! What’s your problem? And boss man, you—”

“You will NEVER call me that in this form again,” Loki boomed. She seemed to grow to fill the entire room, and though Kevin was frightened, Henchman two seemed relieved. Loki told the lock that maybe it had been accidentally broken and that it should make as much noise as possible for people to come check. The lock obliged, turning on the alarm. Loki knocked Kevin back into a wall. “You, get in the portal!” Henchman two grabbed his sack and leapt through. Loki touched Kevin’s forehead, erasing his memory of ever having worked for him. “Sorry, but my brother can’t know I’m here. Actually…” Loki also erased why it was so important to Kevin to be a jerk. “No. No, I’m not sorry. And maybe in the future, you’ll learn some respect.” Loki told the room that what had happened here was Kevin snuck down in a costume, but the clerk stopped him from stealing. The clerk had been very heroic, just managing to punch Kevin into the wall before collapsing himself. The room decided that in fact, this WAS what had happened and that Loki had never been there at all. Security cameras adjusted themselves accordingly. Loki stepped through her portal and back into headquarters.


	2. Information

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a short update. It's meant to just fill in a couple gaps to make storytelling easier.

Loki had forgotten Henchman two’s name. She should probably learn it, as this had so far been the only minion to understand human decency AND want to help commit crimes.

“I fell on hard times, ma’m,” Henchman was saying. “I need the money, but you still gotta be there for your brother, you know? Or your sister,” he added.

Loki shifted out of the form of the woman and became the frost giant prince of Asgard. At this point, it was too embarrassing to not know. Blushing, Loki asked Henchman for his name. (It turned out to be Robert, but call me Bobby.) Loki turned red and apologized, then told Bobby that he had never asked for his name and to forget that anything had happened. Bobby promptly did so, and Loki was only a little guilty.

“Thank you, Bobby,” he said. “And I—”

“Boss?” Bobby almost whispered. “Can I ask you something?”

Loki paused, hesitant. Well, Bobby had proved himself so far… “Yes?”

“What pronouns should I use for you, now that you’re back like this? Like how you were in New York… What should I call you now?” Bobby looked embarrassed himself to have to ask. Loki smiled. The boy was trying, he really was.

“Thank you for asking. When I take the form of a man, I am a man. The same goes when I shift into a woman—I am a woman. But just ‘boss’ will be fine if you must, and ‘Mx.’ will do in the place of ‘sir’ or ‘ma’m’. If I may ask, where did this come from?” Loki smiled. Mortals were, on the whole, not as accepting of this sort of thing. They were improving, certainly, but there was a long way to go.

“Pronounced ‘mix.’ Ok, boss. Umm,” Bobby said. “I had a friend, years ago…” Bobby was very uncomfortable. Painful memories, it looked like. “His parents kicked him out of the house, after he told them who he was… I always went to Pride with him. We were together, before…” Bobby wasn’t going to finish, and he looked away. Loki nodded.

“It’s remarkably well mannered of you,” he said. “Kevin wasn’t a very nice man, was he?”

Bobby shook his head no, and then smiled a little bit. “Real punks respect pronouns,” he said. “What’s our next step, Mx?” 

“First,” Loki grinned, “We need a second henchman.”

Bobby dumped his bag of gold on the ground and squared himself up. “I know just where to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot guarantee any reasonable schedule for posting updates, but I'm going to try to get one per week. This only counts as half, though, because I didn't really advance the plot... there's a schedule in my head, eventually it will come to pass. Thank you!


	3. New Kid Joins the Crew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobby has a friend who might be interested in joining the team... is Loki ready to meet him?

Loki stayed in male form on the trip. “It will be better for him to see you like you were in New York,” Bobby had said.

“Why?” Loki had asked.

“He’s your biggest fan,” Bobby had smiled.

Loki pondered this as the small taxi Bobby had insisted they take shuddered to a stop in front of an apartment building. Did this mean that some of the mortals HAD sympathized with the plans? He’d grown to dislike the speech he had made before his first fight against Captain America. Too flashy. Too showy. Too much like what a conquering Odin would have said to a pack of trolls. And yet… No, there was no way Loki would stand for this. There was a new way of doing things, and he’d be damned if he let some fanboy force him back to—

“Loki!” The man who opened the door snarled, and leapt directly at the god. Bobby tried to hold him back but the man was too powerful. A couple punches to the jaw later, Loki stepped towards the house.

“If you’re done, then,” he scoffed. He told his cloak to wave dramatically in the wind, and it did so.

“That… that didn’t even hurt him!” The man was whispering to Bobby.

“I know,” Bobby said, awed. “He’s the real deal, Scott.”

Loki set up a projection of himself as soon as he stepped out of their sight. The projection Loki smirked when it saw him rubbing his face. “Just go find out what’s going on,” Loki snapped. The projection moved off and and Loki told his skin to heal, and to avoid the bruise it was trying to form. “Ow,” he winced. It hadn’t worked. Loki forced his metabolism to speed up enough to heal the bruse naturally. 

Coming back into range of hearing, Loki watched the projection, Bobby, and the new guy walk inside. The new guy was glaring angrily at the projection. It winked at him and smiled. Loki kept pace with it invisibly, then whisked it away just as he fell into its spot. New guy quickly looked around, then shut the door.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe it’s really you!” New guy was saying. His face lit up and he seemed genuinely excited. Loki carefully kept his face neutral, despite the anger boiling up inside him. “I mean, I never thought I would get to thank you—”

“With your fists?” Loki interrupted. He let ice drip into his words, and told the man to be very, very afraid.

“I, um…” the new guy froze. “I had to.”

“Why, might I ask?” Loki was pouring the royalty on thickly. His voice was silvery silk, winding its way around the man’s head and—

“Boss, he really does like you.” Bobby said. “Scott, why did you—”

“Do you even know whose apartment this is?” Scott hissed. “This is Hawkeye’s building! I just pay rent, man! Why did you bring him here?”

“I will not be talked about in third person,” Loki said, advancing. He stared down into Scott’s eyes. “Bobby, we will discuss your lack of judgement later. You will forget—”

“Wait!” Scott yelped. “I really do appreciate your work! You really brought the heroes together! Like, I’ve been working for social justice for a while now, but people were always refusing to accept that there were problems with society! Your attack tied everyone together, to fight you! Everyone is working together now, and… and… yeah.” Scott fumbled around for proper words to end his passionate speech.

“This is Hawkeye’s apartment. If he knew I was here, he would tell me brother. And—”

“But I took out all the security cameras! Bobby, tell him I—”

“You will cease this prattle. Bobby, we’re leaving.”

“Enough!” Bobby yelled. “Boss, from what you’ve told me of your plans, this is something Scott would want to be a part of. He doesn’t like you personally, but he loves what you’re doing. We could use him.”

Scott nodded furiously. “What ARE you doing any—”

Loki cut Scott off. “I assume you attacked me for the benefit of any cameras you might have missed.”

Scott nodded again. Loki sighed and sent a projection of himself outside to get kicked out by a Scott projection. Scott watched in fascination, glued to his spot on the floor.

Loki left the room, swishing his cloak behind him. In the kitchen, he told the oven that it was actually a fryer who never realized what it wanted out of life, and that it was currently preparing enough french fries to feed a family of seven. The oven chirped and happily began dumping perfectly crisp fries onto the floor. Loki told some plates that they could move on their own, and that they wanted to pick up all the fries and serve them at the table. As the dishes began their task, Loki tweaked the sound waves around his ears enough that he could hear the conversation going on in the living room.

“Scott. He’s the real thing.”

“I know. And it’s freaking me out, man. I mean… how many people are dead because of him? He’s the scariest of scary, and… and he’s here in my apartment!”

“And how many new projects has your group managed to get going in the wreckage? It’s like you always told me. Society needed to recognize that life was not working, and now you have the perfect chance to keep it moving!”

“What is that chance? I don’t understand what this is.”

Loki collected the fries from the plate and started eating. This was as much as test for Bobby as it was for Scott. How well did Bobby get was was going on? How trustworthy was he?

“It’s a job opportunity. Loki… they’re pulling something big, Scott, and—”

“Do you mean ‘they’ as in Loki and other people, or as in gender neutral pronouns for the boss?”

“I don’t know if there are others, actually… No, gender neutral pronouns for the boss.”

“Ok.”

“You should have seen it, dude! Remember Kevin?”

“Man, that guy was such a d*****bag! What ever happened to him?”

“Get this— Loki HIRED him.”

“What? No!”

“YEAH. But then fired him! Kevin pulled his usual thing with the needing to be a jerk to literally everyone, and Boss took NO SHIT.”

“Dude, we’ve been waiting for someone to do that to Kevin for years!”

Loki smiled. The french fries were just about gone. The metabolism boost from earlier had left him hungry, and gods when gods got hungry, there would need to be copious amounts of food. Scott seemed to be doing okay. He picked up on the whole “basic human decency” thing pretty well, but he would have to be more careful about his random punching. In the living room, Scott and Bobby were hugging. Scott had said yes.

Loki wandered back into the room. He’d cleaned the room up with his magic, and was himself spotless.

“When do we start, boss?” Scott smiled. “I’m in.”

“Good,” Loki nodded. “We start now.” He clicked his fingers. A green portal flashed and appeared on the floor. Scott jumped back, startled. “Follow my lead. This one is time-sensitive, Bobby, so protocol 7. And Scott— Welcome to the team.” Loki smirked and jumped through the portal. Bobby was fiddling with his watch.

“Protocol 7? I don’t understand,” Scott said.

“You’ll pick it up,” Bobby said. He leapt onto the portal and plunged through. “See you th—”

Scott shook his head in bewilderment. He grabbed a tiny piece of paper from the table and shoved it into his pocket. “Thank god Bobby didn’t see that,” he muttered, and stepped into the glowing green light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been randomizing my use of different pronouns on purpose: I use "he" or "her" when Loki is talking to themselves and it is clear which gender they currently are. Otherwise, I use "they/them" as everyone else would. The story does seem to be picking up, however! Loose ends will all eventually be tied up.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott has hist first mission on the team. How does Loki know his secret? Does he dare reveal it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The very first line of this chapter is in honor of Noelle Stevenson's webcomic Nimona, which is available for sale in book form and you should all buy it because it will bring you great happiness.

“We need more general chaos. I’m talking fire everywhere,” Loki grinned evilly. Scott peered around the barren room as guards ran and screamed.

“There isn’t actually any… fire?” Scott asked. Bobby nodded.

“Boss didn’t make it visible to us. Just the guards.” Bobby continued to mess with his watch.

“What are you doing?” Scott asked. He was beginning to feel lost. In the background, Loki was attacking a security man with a spear. “Where did that spear come from?”

“Done!” Bobby yelled. The room froze. Men stopped falling midair, and Loki stretched. Loki climbed down an invisible staircase, yawning. As he took each step, the spear fell away and the clothing seemed to reform. Loki jumped the last small gap to the ground, and she swished her hair around. She watched Scott for a reaction. There wasn’t an obvious jolt, but new kid was having some difficulty keeping track of the action.

“Let’s go, boys,” she said. She twirled, green cloak flowing seamlessly into a skirt, and adjusted her helmet. She told the locked door at the end of the room that it would open when she snapped her fingers, and it did.

“Boss is a woman now,” Scott whispered to Bobby. Loki scoffed to herself. As if she couldn’t hear them.

“Yup,” Bobby was responding.

“This shapeshifting thing— it’s exactly what everyone who doesn’t fit the binary ever wanted,” Scott sighed in admiration.

Loki smiled. She was proud of her powers, and it was nice to be an inspiration. It wasn’t as if she had meant to hurt anyone in New York; not really. And there was something about the way mortals talked when they liked you… No wonder Thor spent so much time around them. She slid through the door and her henchmen followed.

“How is everyone frozen?” Scott asked. Inside the room had been no different. Men were frozen at their seats or mid-panic. This room was full of desks with computers, and a black board covered in scribbles lined one wall.

“Ummm.” Bobby gulped. “Protocol 7.”

“What’s that?”

“I would rather not say.” Bobby seemed ashamed.

“Did you—”

“It was a tough time for EVERYONE at the School, okay? I didn’t notice I had taken it until I was long gone.”

“I can’t believe you stole the—”

“Boys!” Loki called. “It’s here.” She was referring to a small safe cut into a wall.

“What—”

“Something that was taken from me,” Loki said, anticipating the question. She braced herself. Here was the true test of whether or not she could trust Scott. “Scott, you’re going to break it open.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” Loki said. She stared directly into Scott’s eyes, but he looked away. “Don’t you trust me? I can contain the damage. And with Protocol 7, it will be over before anyone here could get hurt.” She gestured grandly at the people and smiled kindly. Scott looked uncomfortable.

“I need to remove my contacts,” Scott mumbled. Loki nodded. She told the air around her palm that it had to make room; a small compact was right there and it couldn’t get in the way. The contact appeared and she tossed it to Scott. He fiddled around with it for a while until the two contacts, blue on the outside and red inside, had come out. She suspended them in some water in midair. Scott had squeezed his eyes shut, very tightly.

“Bobby, turn him to face the lock,” Loki whispered softly. Bobby gently maneuvered Scott into place. Scott opened his eyes, and a red beam of energy shot out. The light melted the door of the safe before Scott had stopped. Loki magic’d the contacts back into place, and Scott blinked to clear his eyes.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” She said. She stared at the melted safe. “Looks like we’re both social outcasts, friend.”

She grabbed the single file folder from inside the safe. A timer blinked but did not count down. It had been the bomb to destroy the documents if anyone unauthorized ever tried to access them.

“Boys, we’re going home,” Loki said. Her portal shimmered into existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've been reading "Loki: Agent of Asgard" you will notice that issue 14 was recently released. This was to my great joy and surprise, because the authors have treated Loki's gender identity EXACTLY how I imagined it. There is a scene in which, over the course of three panels, Loki changes gender while changing clothes. And while in masculine form, he had referred to himself as "The God of Lies," in her female form she jokingly said "I can't be the Goddess of Only SOME Stories, can I?" I'm doing the same thing here. Gender neutral terms are accepted, but when Loki is a boy, he's a boy, and when she's a girl, she's a girl.
> 
> Now that the story is gathering strength, you may recognize some characters. "Bobby." "Scott." You know, the X-Men have always sort-of represented queer people... hmmm... :)


	5. Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short break while I re-vamp the idea behind the story

“What’s protocol 7?” Scott finally asked. It had been a month since he had stepped through Loki’s portal and ended up back home. Bobby and Loki were nowhere to be seen, until now. Bobby had popped up in front of his door, alone.

“Loki stops time.” Bobby looked very uncomfortable.

“Why was it such a big deal?” It’s all Scott can think to say. There’s so much that needs to be said, but he can’t think.

Bobby only shrugged. He collapsed on the couch.

“What happened, Bobby? What happened to being… partners…?”

Bobby shrugged again. “Loki didn’t want me around anymore,” he said. “Something’s happened. I don’t know what, but nothing seems to matter to Loki anymore.”

The two stared at each other in silence for a long time.

“What ended up being in that folder?”

“I dunno.”

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

What HAD happened to Loki? Nothing really… nothing important. Just like life. The file folder had been empty. Well, not empty.

“Dear past Loki, sorry! I was bored. From, future Loki.”

Loki had given up on everything. Loki had dismissed all the henchmen, even Bobby. Loki had sat around being dejected for a while. Loki decided to try being dead. It wasn’t any fun, and Hela wasn’t too pleased about having to deal with her father. So, Loki had returned. Waiting for something to do, something to plan… Nothing came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't promise when, but Loki WILL return soon

**Author's Note:**

> Dear anyone who IS genderfluid: I am not. I wrote this because I wanted representation for genderfluid characters, but the whole purpose is defeated if I've screwed it up. PLEASE tell me if I have accidentally been offensive, or gotten something wrong. I also am stating, for the record, that I am using male and female pronouns as appropriate because this is how Loki's character works in the story, and I do not at all assume that my baseline goes for everyone. The important thing is respect for people regardless of gender or sexuality or race or anything, so TELL ME if I am not showing it. Thank you.


End file.
